As blended learning takes the central stage in higher education institutions, education leaders need to make sure that everyone on campus has access to the quality and secure connectivity that today’s applications and devices require for their optimal performance.
Reza Jafari, CEO and Founder of e-Development International and Jake Stine, Principal Architect at AT&T Business joined Fierce Education’s Head of Content Elliot Markowitz to discuss how colleges and universities can design or upgrade their connected campus during Fierce Education’s recent virtual event, Higher Education: Technology Profiles in Success available on demand here.
The discussion started by addressing how the student-centric model plays a paramount role in the connectivity ecosystem within the institutions. Pondering on how universities and colleges prepare for a post-Covid era and how education will look like going forward, Reza Jafari explained how higher education is experiencing other challenges in addition to those brought by the pandemic:
- Decline in enrollment: Enrollment did not pick up when classes re-started on campus this fall
- Decline in birth-rate: There is currently a negative birth rate in the United States
- Immigration policy: There is no immigration policy in the United States that says the country is going to be providing proper policies to be able to attract immigrants able to go to college, go through the process, and stay in the country to become producers toward the society
- Rural vs urban campuses: In rural areas, the absence of connectivity and devices represents a challenge for both students and academia. According to Jafari, during the pandemic, perhaps to a lesser degree, even urban institutions that were not prepared and ready in terms of connectivity and infrastructure have faced equal challenges during the online learning experience in blended environments to those faced by schools in rural areas
In terms of the opportunities higher education institutions are experiencing, Jafari mentioned:
- Digital Transformation: Covid pushed Digital Transformation on the top of the agenda
- The rise of entrepreneurship and collaborative innovation: This is becoming more prevalent, even small universities and community colleges are now being involved in entrepreneurship and collaborative innovation with technology companies, which greatly helps with enrollment
- New sources of funding and support: There is a need to find new sources of funding and support, especially when enrollment declines
- New business models as well as public and private partnerships: This helps provide support to students and keep them in the programs
Digital Transformation in higher education with focus on student centricity was, indeed, an integral part of the conversation. Jake Stine, from AT&T, continued by discussing some of the challenges of connectivity in higher education.
“Colleges know that students need to be central to their institutions,” said Stine. “Institutions need to start adapting to students’ behavior.”
Digital Transformation in higher education already existed before Covid, with the pandemic only serving as an accelerator to solve a number of existing problems, according to Stine. “Students, future students, students to be are all focused on mobile devices. Because of that, [institutions] have to develop applications and accessibility through [mobile devices] to attract students and keep them engaged,” he said.
Stine said many of students do not decide on a college based on the institution’s brand but rather they choose based on their experience. “If they see the college has a cool app, a tool where they can collaborate with, that’s a winner,” he says. “And with that, comes the infrastructure that will bring to life the kind of immersiveness students need in the college environment.” Either fiber or wireless, it needs to support that connectivity which allows the immersiveness that will attract, engage, and retain students.
Requests for connectivity and 5G are not coming from IT or the CEO any longer but from faculty directly, Stine said. Each department sees the need to accelerate the collaborative environment between faculty and students. Stine says the requirements for 5G come when professors see the need to integrate collaborations with the manufacturing vertical or with healthcare when they want to start integrating Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) to train students.
Jafari closed the discussion with a paramount statement adding that “Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence are going to play a significant role when delivering the educational experience to our students.”
For Stine, every strategic partnership with an educational institution has to be built with the vision that students are the future leaders and connectivity is the backbone that enables the environment today’s students need to navigate toward their future. “Digital Transformation. Acceleration. Accessibility; they are all part of the special coolness factor that keeps the students there and engaged.”
For more articles from Fierce Education’s virtual summit, see:
Social Media Best Practices to Boost Student Engagement
Collaboration Critical to Technology Transformation in Higher Education